Mechanocaloric materials experience a change in temperature when a mechanical stress is applied on them adiabatically. Image Credit: Daniel Errandonea, Universitat de Valencia. Click image for the largest view.

The study establishes the relationship between external mechanical tension and ionic transport in ion conductors using molecular dynamics (a computer simulation method for studying the physical movements of atoms and molecules) and quantum mechanics calculations.

The work shows that applying pressure to the material serves as an efficient means of adjusting critical temperature in superionic compounds (fast ion conductors).

These results pave the way for a rational design of green cooling technologies that are not only more ecological, but more efficient and cost-effective than conventional cooling methods. The results also may have important implications for the development of solid-state batteries, a field that is a subject of more investigation.

Scientists have long been using solid-state cooling methods as an alternative to conventional refrigeration techniques that rely on pollutant gases. But the efficiency of solid-state cooling has typically left much to be desired, being up to four times less efficient than conventional methods. Until now the required mechano-caloric effects have only been observed in ferroelectric materials and superelastic metal alloys, both of which are very scarce and very costly.

Now the search for more efficient materials could be over, or even more intensified as other ideas are explored.

Physicists Daniel Errandonea, of the UV’s Institute of Material Science, and Claudio Cazorla, of the School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia), have just predicted that ion conducting materials such as fluorite (CaF2) might present a greater mechano-caloric effect than even the ferroelectric group. In this light, ion conductors emerge as a new family of materials with promising applications in solid-state cooling. And the good news is, that fluorite is very abundant in nature, with deposits in many countries including Spain.

This may be the crack that finally allows the cooling field industry to leave behind the decades old flowing gas through radiators with pump and valve technology to move heat out of containments like refrigerators, homes and business.

The research paper linked above is sure to attract a great deal of investigation. For a great swath of the world’s population cooling is a major energy consumer. A jump in efficiency is very welcome indeed.